


A Light in the Piazza

by madame_faust



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom - Susan Kay
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Meetings, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Own Voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23792056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: A young architect finds himself captivated by a solitary figure in a funny wool hat.(An Erik/Nadir meet-ugly fix-it fic based loosely on Phantom by Susan Kay.)
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera/The Persian
Comments: 44
Kudos: 48





	1. Alba

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this as a prompt for the-l-spacer on Tumblr...but it went a teensy bit darker than I imagined in the middle. Don't worry! It ends cute!

Ostensibly, he was spending the long, warm October afternoons sketching design ideas for the firm's latest client. His architectural illustrations were becoming something of a local legend: beautiful, fantastical designs that clients found fetching and site foremen found ridiculous - they built houses of brick, stone, and mortar, after all, not air and starlight. Inevitably they changed their tunes when the saw the blueprints: sound engineering and understandable construction, all well within the realm of Euclid's geometry.

Erik always felt a little twinge of disappointment when he revealed he blueprints; rather like a magician might feel if, after every successful performance he was forced to display every hidden pocket, sliding panel, and marked card which demonstrated the method by which he carried out his illusions.

Silly fancy, really; he was no magician. Merely a designer, if an eccentric one. And yet, now, sitting cross-legged on a bench, sketchbook in his lap, fingers smudged with charcoal and pencil led, he found himself a victim of his own fancy. No doric columns sprang forth from the page, no bas relief, nor squat little cupola graced the page. Instead, it was the decidedly un-geometric figure of a man. A progression of the masculine form in various stages of reality: first a blur of movement, a coat whipping about, stirred up by a sudden breeze. The dash and tumble of a hat falling to the ground and chase being given.

Erik was inordinately fond of that hat. It was an odd little gray cap, made of wool, he thought, or heavy cloth. Too heavy for the weather and not at all in keeping with the local fashion. But it was the sight of that hat, tumbling round on the ground, swirling round the legs of passers-by, kicked by impatient feet scurrying along that first caught his eye. What made his eye linger was the sight of the man who had lost it. A tall, broad-shouldered, proud-looking man. Far too dignified a figure to be chasing after a silly little hat in a public square. Erik was sure he'd seen that face before, or, at least the expression it wore: the stern brow, the square chin, the flinty eyes. A dozen or more Roman generals had that same look about themselves, their resolute expressions fixed in determination, their sightless white eyes forever gazing out on lands they sought to conquer and battles they meant to win. No playful breeze had dared snatched the caps from their heads, Erik was quite sure.

And so he was only a man, then, not a statue of an ancient general, come suddenly to life and escaped from a museum or great house to roam the streets of modern Rome. Yet Erik was still captivated by him, his commanding presence, his hard looks, and his voice - low and gravelly with a beautiful resonance that came not from years of careful training, but by God's blessing of a broad chest. It was that resonance that carried his words across the piazza to Erik's pricked ears. He didn't understand the language - neither Italian nor Latin (neither the Pope's nor Caesar's), but he thought he grasped the meaning. A chastisement of the hat for getting away from him. 

He took up his pencil and drew then, capturing the figure in motion, his shoulders, the length of his stride, a blocky impression of grasping fingers. His reference was gone almost as quick as he'd come and Erik despaired; he'd wanted a better look at his face. He so adored drawing faces; ironic, to be sure, but if he had not gone in for architecture, he thought he might have tried his hand as a portraitist. In stark contrast to his architectural designs which tended toward the dreamy and fantastic, his drawings of human figures were hyper-realistic to the point of offense.

Signore Giovanni, under whom he had completed his apprenticeship, ruefully remarked that he wished Erik was not such an attentive artist as to render every wrinkle and age spot in such truthful reproduction. His youngest daughter had been more blunt; when she saw the sketches he'd done for her wedding portrait, she seized them all and threw them into the fire; she objected to the width and size of her nose and insisted that he was being cruel by exaggerating its proportions. 

Erik tried to capture the face of the man from the piazza as he recalled it, but the results were unsatisfying in the extreme, as bland and regular as ancient portraits. It might have been anyone at all; he preferred specificity and variety when it came to capturing the human condition. Though most people were not made as...uniquely as he himself, there was still infinite, fascinating, divine variation in each human face. He wished he'd gotten a better look.

A lucky star must have been shining down upon him for a few days later, in the same square, he got his wish; the man had purchased a new suit, but he recognized him by his bearing anyway. The funny little woolen hat had been replaced with a brown silk topper, the longer coat with the wonderful movement in its skirts reined into more typical Western attire. Erik might have been disappointed; thus attired his odd General looked like he might be anyone else, only there was that dignity still to him, that air of command that distinguished him from his fellow-creatures even though he'd dressed to blend in. 

The wind was calm today, the sky blue and the sun beaming down; this time he did not rush about. He sat down, not directly beside Erik, but well within his line of vision. Squinting against the light, he looked up at the clock tower that loomed over the square and checked the time against his own pocket-watch. Satisfied with what he saw, he replaced the watch without winding it and sat, his broad shoulders slumping slightly in his exquisitely tailored suit.

Erik's pencil was flying across the page. The broad brow was the same as his memory, the jaw as square as though God had used a drafting ruler when laying him out to be formed. But now there were details. A large nose - _Signora Luciana would never approve_ , Erik smirked to himself as he took care to recreate its shape and structure exactly on paper. He was not close enough to see what color his eyes were, but they were large eyes, with long dark eyelashes and no less masculine for it. His mouth was, unfortunately, partly hidden by a large black mustache, but the lower lip was full, soft, and inviting.

Discretely, Erik daubed at his chin and the back of his neck with his handkerchief; the elevation in his temperature had bugger all to do with the weather. He was a handsome man, his General. A beautiful man. And Erik had such a weakness where beauty was concerned. 

He was also, Erik realized after a glorious few days of meditation and deep study, a solitary figure. He had no companions. He spoke to no one. Never raised his mysterious eyes to connect with another nor rounded that soft lower lip in a smile. He would sit in the sun, soak its light into his burnished brown skin, a quarter of an hour, or half an hour's worth of sunshine. Then away he would go. Posture erect. Bearing powerful and commanding. But that posture, that aura which had set him apart from his fellow man and caught Erik's notice now seemed to speak of isolation and loneliness. His poor General. 

So caught up was he, in his figure study, that he failed to notice he himself was being studied. Erik did not try to invite notice under the best of circumstances; he wore a mask which matched the pallor of his own skin, a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off of said pale skin and to tilt down over his eyes and obscure his face further. Practical, yes, but it did invite suspicion. If one had cause to be suspicious. 

The church bells chimed the hour and Erik was packing up his things, ready to return to the firm when he finally discovered what color his General's eyes were. It was an artistic satisfaction received under less than ideal circumstances.

He had been caught up in his good fortune. His General remained upon his customary bench for almost a full hour, providing Erik a wonderful opportunity to sketch his hands - large hands, with blunt fingers, curiously unadorned. He'd stared and stared as he tried to capture the pattern of the hairs below his knuckles. But, alas, he did have to return to his drafting table eventually, so he packed away his charcoals and leads and tucked his papers under his arm for the short trip back to the office.

He was delayed. By a firm grip on his shoulder, the point of a knife in his stomach and a growling question he could not answer. Erik's hat was knocked from his head as he was thrown against a wall, the folio that contained his papers fell into the street, burst its contents into the alleyway. But Erik only had one thought. A stupid thought. But it was the only one his addled mind could conjure.

Green. His General's eyes were green. Jade-green. Only too bad he didn't have any oils or pastels at the ready to recreate them before he was disemboweled. It really was too bad it would end like this; as much affection as Signore Giovanni bore him, he was sure he'd not pay to have his formaldehyde soaked-corpse shipped back to his mother. He did not know what would disappoint her more; that he was destined to be buried in Italy and far away from the old homestead or that he was very likely to be cremated if he was sent back to her. That would disappoint his step-father, Dr. Barye; he probably wanted his corpse whole to donate to a university.

"I don't have any money, _Generale_ ," he said, babbled, really. "I never carry ready money. Too many cutthroats about. Though, if I had some, I'd surely hand it over to you at once. You're a persuasive man."

The General's lovely eyes narrowed, his thick eyelashes shading them in a way that might be coquettish were it not for the snarl upon his lips or the look of murder in his eyes. Erik swallowed hard and felt sweat trickle down his back; it was not the first time he had his life threatened, yet it was not a sensation he was particularly comfortable with. He supposed no man would be comfortable facing their own demise, no matter if the face of death peered at him every morning from his shaving mirror.

The two men stared at one another - the mask naturally lent an air of cool impassivity to Erik's face, but he was sure his General could feel the panicked pounding of his heart. Just why he held him at bay like that, Erik could not say. The quality of his suit set him out as a man of some small wealth. If he'd meant to rob him, he'd have done so by now. If he meant to kill him, he probably would have done that too. 

"Who are you?" his General demanded, in Italian this time, though his speech was accented and overly careful. Not a native speaker, then. "Why do you stare at me? Why are you wearing a...?"

His fluency in the language faltered, but Erik knew what he meant to ask. It was what everyone meant to ask when they met him. That was not unusual, though the ever-present knife leant an air of urgency to an otherwise rote reply.

"I am an artist - an architect by trade, artist by inclination," he said, thinking that, if these were his last seconds on the earth that God and St. Peter would count this last act of honesty and measure it favorably against all his other sins. "I was staring at you because I was sketching you. I wear a mask because I am grotesquely ugly."

In an effort to feign fluency, Erik spoke Italian casually, even sloppily. It was clear that his General had not followed along. Or, if he had, that he had not believed him for he brought the knife up and swiftly cut the strings of the mask. 

It was custom-made and well fitted enough that it did not fall to the ground at once. His General, impatient, snatched it away - then recoiled, as so many did. Erik, if he was wiser or simple cared more about the preservation of his life, should have taken the opportunity to run. But he did not. On the contrary, he stood just as he was and - madman that he was - chanced a smile. 

"There, you see?" he said shrugging his shoulders apologetically. "Grotesquely ugly. I did warn you."

His General pocketed his knife and Erik was grateful to see it go. Then, his General did the most extraordinary thing: he went down on one knee and picked up the pages of Erik's scattered folio. He stuffed them back inside in a most disorderly manner, but he did pick them up and hold them, along with his hat, for Erik to take. Then he retrieved his mask where it had fallen into the dirt. No longer did it match his flesh; it was sullied and dirtied with grit from the street.

His General did not meet his eyes as he handed it back. Whether out of disgust or embarrassment, it was impossible to say, but Erik was inclined to believe it was the latter.

"I...apologize," he said gruffly. "I thought you were...someone else."

Erik took back his belongings and smiled again - a giddy glee was flooding his veins, proof that he was grateful to be alive after all. What a strange and marvelous thing!

"I do not have a face one is likely to forget," he remarked cheerfully. The only lingering sign that the violence of the encountered had at all affected him was a lingering tremor in his hands. His General noticed, had to notice, because Erik was holding out a card for him to take. "If you need any further proof - Erik Barye. That is my name. And that is my firm. Look me up sometime, if you're in the neighborhood."

His General did not take the card and only looked at him incredulously. "I might have killed you."

"But you did not," Erik reminded him, hoping that he did not change his mind; he hadn't had the chance to draw his eyes yet. When his General made no move to take the card, Erik pocketed it and pressed the mask to his face. The ties were hopeless, but he could replace them once he was returned home. "Well. If you change your mind - ah, not about _killing_ me, mind, but...taking up the acquaintance, I take my luncheon in that square almost daily."

His General made no reply. There was a bit of movement of his mouth - whether he was about to smile or frown, Erik did not know. That was followed by a minute shaking of his head. Then he left the alley. Gone. Possibly forever.

But at least Erik knew what color his eyes were. His of his General was complete: strong, proud, handsome, and dangerous. What a heady combination of attributes; the most interesting person Erik had encountered in years.

As good as his word, he resumed his regular habits, back in the piazza by the next afternoon, his mask clean, the ties repaired. He'd brought his paints and set about beginning a portrait.

Eyes first. He mixed blue and green and yellow with just a bit of black until he got the shade right. Long did he outstay his usual time; the light was so good and the atmosphere so beautiful that he did not want to move. It was almost dark when he knew he had to stop. He was packing up his things when he was conscious that he was being watched. 

His General. Back again. Suited and distinguished, not at all a cutthroat, not an almost-murderer here in the orange light at the end of the day. Erik stood back from the canvas - still wet, he could not take it up in his arms until it dried a bit more - and gestured toward it. "What do you think?"

His General approached, hands empty and loosely swinging by his sides.

"My," he gestured toward his chin, "is not so big, I think."

"Oh, it _is_ ," Erik replied earnestly. "I can assure you that it is. I have been watching you so closely. As you observed."

"For a painting," his General replied, with an astonished shake of his head. 

"For a painting," Erik confirmed, with a resolute nod. The sun sunk lower upon the horizon. The two men stood side by side, staring at the image. Then Erik broke the silence.

"Supper?" he asked, pleasantly. His General looked taken aback. "Unless you have other plans."

An extraordinary thing happened next - his General _laughed_. And if Erik thought his face was beautiful, it was nothing, _nothing_ to his laughter. His General seemed surprised by the sound himself; he brought a hand to his mouth as though tracing the strange sound to its source.

"I haven't laughed in..." he trailed off, unable to calculate the time. This time, when he looked at Erik it was in awe, not suspicion and when he asked him again, "Who are you?" it was said in wonder and not contempt.

Erik shrugged. "An artist. Nothing more. And an amusing supper companion, as you have some slight proof. What say you?"

His General thought about it. Then, with the minute shaking of his head that precipitated his departure, he sighed and replied. "Well. Why not?"

The light in the piazza was fading to full dark as Erik removed the painting and tucked the easel under his arm. His General, when he was not paranoid and murderous, proved himself to be a solicitous fellow. He insisted upon carrying the easel as he followed Erik into the darkened streets.

"When you called me..." his General spoke in his halting, careful way. "You called me _generale_. Why?"

"Oh," Erik shifted his shoulders. "You struck me as a military man. Was I wrong?"

"Not...exactly," his General replied. His tongue darted out and wet his inviting lower lip. This time it was Erik's turn to tilt his face away, not not look directly at him. Too dangerous. Like staring into the sun. "I was...called ' _daroga_ ' once. Not the same, but...close."

"Shall I call you Daroga, then?" Erik asked. 

"No," his not-General replied at once, a note of alarm in his voice. Then, more softly. "No. I would prefer you not."

"What, then?" Erik asked. "If anything?"

His not-General was quiet, contemplating. Perhaps trying to find the words he sought in a language in which he had no fluency. Finally he said, "Nadir."

"Nadir," Erik tested the name on his tongue - given name, surname, he had no idea, but he was curious on one point. "What does it mean?"

"Rare."

"Like a steak or a gem?" Erik asked. His General - Nadir - laughed again. This time, he touched a hand to his throat, quicker to find the source of the sound. "Or like laughter?"

"Laughter," he smiled, once again, shaking his head as though he couldn't believe it. "Like laughter."


	2. Crepuscolo

It was not a flattering likeness. The chin was jutting and cumbersome, the brow lined with premature creases that showed a lifetime of worry lived in merely thirty years. There were tiny brushstrokes of silver glinting at the temples and the expression was hardly the placid serenity favored by most portraitists. Instead, the face upon the canvas was weary and stern. 

The eyes, though, they were beautiful - perhaps too flattering or too keen. A bright, green, piercing and vivid despite the shadows beneath them and the worry lines above. Arresting eyes, the first thing the viewer would be drawn into when they glimpsed the painting.

It was the face that Nadir glimpsed every time he passed a mirror or window; not a face he was particularly fond of looking at. The image discomfited him; when he blinked or moved, he expected the painting to do so likewise, but it simply stared. Unmoving, but expressive, frozen in time by oils and a skillful hand.

Odd, that a man who looked only at impassive white leather when he passed a mirror should be able to render the human face so exquisitely, with such attention to detail. But there were many things about Erik which were odd, as Nadir quickly discovered when he took it upon himself to renew their acquaintance.

At first he approached him in the piazza to be sure - around every corner, a flash of a silver bracelet seemed to him to be the glint of a sword, the smell of smoke from a kitchen fire the aroma of gunpowder. How could he be sure that this hideous young man who watched him so closely was, as he said, merely taking his likeness. Day after day he sat in that square. Day after day he was observed. Surely there was more to it than aesthetic interest. Wasn't there?

And yet as twilight descended upon Rome he saw his eyes staring up at him from a wet canvas. And before it was Erik, white fingers speckled with pigment, a long white smock covering his grey suit. 

When he turned to look at him, he did not seem surprised to see him; but then, Nadir ruefully remembered, he had been looking at him all day. Just a painting. It was truly just a painting. 

He asked him why that first night when they dined upon cornmeal mush and stewed beef. Why choose to paint _him_ of all people? When they were strangers?

Erik cocked his head at him, his eyes hooded by the mask and his expression unreadable. The bloated, malformed bottom lip, impossible to completely hide even under the mask twisted in an unreadable expression. 

"Because you looked so fine," he replied simply, "sitting there, with your rigid posture and strict adherence to the time. Like Alexander or Darius or Caesar, I thought. I had to take you down - it's not every day one sees a ghost of a bygone age."

At least, he thought he said something to that effect; Italian was a language with which he had only some little familiarity and no fluency. Nadir slipped, then. And corrected his pronunciation of the ancient king of Persia. As soon as the name tripped off his tongue, he felt the meal turn to lead in his belly; if there was some mistake. If he had been taken in by an elaborate ruse...

But Erik only nodded. Repeated it back, flawlessly. And drained his glass of wine carelessly.

"I suppose it sounds strange," he went on, back to their previous conversation. "To hear that I _had_ to take you down. But I did. It's a compulsion with me, almost an addiction. If I'd let you go, it would have...haunted me. I'd have lost sleep over it. Or wasted good paper and ink, trying to draw you from memory and losing the details through the passage of time and inattention. Art in the blood can be as ghastly a thing as any other inherited infirmity."

Nadir did not understand - not half of the words he spoke, nor the conviction he spoke of. He was no artist. Not a man of great passion. And overused body weighted down with paranoia and grief, wrung dry of tears, yet still infused with a stubborn will to live.

It was that will that brought him to the bustling square in the first place; if he could not drag himself out of the mire of lethargy and despair, perhaps he might watch others live their lives fully and seemingly without worry? But the mornings were too busy, too crowded. He found himself breaking out into a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the capital city's damnable autumn heat. There were far too many people to keep track of, too many comings and goings to mark, all speaking a language that flowed over his ears like water. 

So he waited. Later in the day when the shops and stalls were temporarily shuttered and abandoned. When very few traipsed outside their homes - with the exception of one man, alarmingly tall, who sat upon the same bench, day after day, whose hands darted over page after page and whose shadowed face was ever turned in Nadir's direction. 

As Erik had studied him for days, so too now did Nadir study Erik. His face he did not wish to see again, the whole wretched lot committed to memory. How, he still wondered, deep at night when the image of that monstrous countenance replaced the swords and revolvers in his nightmares, could a man look like that and live? How could a man look like that and still be called a _man_?

Yet live Erik did. Tall and commanding in his well-tailored suits and clean white mask; Nadir felt horrible when it dropped into the dirty street. Of course it should never have left his face. No one should have to look at such a face as that when out for an afternoon stroll; nor should the bearer of such a face be subjected to the screams and horror that it would inevitably provoke. 

It certainly explained his solitude; despite his business cards and steady income at an architectural firm, Nadir never heard him mention any colleagues or friends by name. Certainly no wife or sweetheart. No, Erik spoke a great deal, but it was always rhapsodic musings on art, music, and nature - interjected with the occasional sly observation on the teeming throngs of humanity that surged around them daily, but never quite touched them.

Nadir let him talk. Erik had a low, lovely voice that was pleasant to listen to. Even if he did not understand the meaning behind the words, there was something soothing about it. If he closed his eyes or turned his head he could almost forget what lay under the mask. He could almost forget many things: the past, the uncertain future. And believe, just as Erik did, if only for a few hours, that there was nothing more important in the world than the discovery, creation, and worship of all the beautiful things.

Like himself, Erik was a man set apart by circumstance. Maybe that was why Nadir sought his acquaintance. Isolation and loneliness was safe, but it was a bland, hollow existence. It was in that first meal with Erik that Nadir was surprised to realize he could still taste; even before he left Persia, since he buried his son, all food was like sand on his tongue. 

If Nadir was brutally honest with himself, it went further back than the first meal they shared together. After he brutally cut the mask from Erik's face and looked into his repulsive, yet surprised countenance, he felt thoroughly mortified and humiliated - and sorry for Erik. For the knife at his stomach and the disfigurement upon his face. It was the first time he'd felt compassion for anyone in a long, long time.

He'd pitied him, then. But pity had been washed away over the course of that first meal. Although Erik seemed as lonely as Nadir himself, he was a man in a comfortable situation. A talented artist. Possibly a wit. And he provided a human connection that Nadir had thought he would never have - nor desire - again. 

It was not long before Erik invited him up to his rooms, a modest suite not far from his office with a small makeshift kitchen and a parlor which indicated he was unused to visitors; every surface was covered with papers, the coffee table and desk hidden under pots of ink, tubes of paint, instruments and mechanical contraptions of every sort. 

And in a chair, a violin case. 

"Don't tell me you're musical as well?" Nadir asked, and Erik laughed and laughed. Of course, he was. _Naturally._ What a strange thing! For Allah to craft a face so hideous and set behind it a mind so keen and all-encompassing. As though his talent was a great cosmic apology. 

He needed almost no encouragement to play. Nadir was quickly acquainted with a good many classical composer: Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and others whose names he could not remember. Erik played and played without ceasing. So late did he go own that Nadir found himself nodding off in a chair.

The room was dark; a single lamp burned low, its wick untrimmed during Erik's impromptu serenade. Nadir was dozing only, conscious enough to note when the music stopped. The floorboards creaked under the tread of Erik's shoes. He was standing close to him; to wake him and Nadir almost sat up before Erik lay a hand upon his shoulder to rouse him. There would be no need - but the touch never came. 

Instead, he crouched beside him. Though his eyes remained closed, Nadir fancied he could imagine the sight before him well enough. Erik divested himself of his jacket as he played and so there he would be, long legs folded like a grasshopper's, white shirtsleeves aglow in the moonlight coming in through the windows. Perhaps in that eerie blue light the mask would look like real flesh. In that light, Nadir fancied he might be able to see his eyes properly: one pale blue, one yellowish brown. He had seen bi-colored eyes before, but never like Erik's; he'd never met anyone quite like Erik...

The air beside his cheek was disturbed. There was a whisper of coolness against his skin, suggestive of knobbly knuckles just barely tracing the outline of his face.

Nadir's body responded before his mind caught up. The almost-caress was met with sudden violence; he reached out and shoved, Erik quickly overbalancing and landing quite hard against the floor. He crashed into the coffee table as he went down, scattering papers everywhere. Upon them, Nadir observed the sketchy outline of his own face. 

For a while, neither moved. Nadir stood over Erik very much like the ancient general he believed him to be. Erik lay on the floor, unmoving and yes, his eyes did catch the moonlight. They were wide and glistened with moisture; there was more fear in them now than Nadir had seen when he had taken his mask and threatened to take his life. 

"Désolé..." he groped for the words, eloquence failing him in his rooms as it had not in the alley. Nadir's heart was pounding furiously and only later would he realize that Erik slipped briefly into French. "I...apologize."

Nadir's throat was dry and he too had trouble finding his words.

"No... _no_ ," was all he managed to grind out behind gritted teeth. And it was all he said before he left, taking the stairs quickly, not even shutting the door behind him. 

It was a low and cowardly thing to do. Nadir knew that even as he raced toward his own rooms and bolted the door behind him. Unworthy. And cruel to do to a man who had only shown him companionship and interest. Who managed to coax the occasional smile at him. To strike him down and refuse the suggestion of affection...

An affection his body perceived as a threat. And it was, in part. A threat of intimacy. And no, his compulsion to strike him down had nothing to do with the laws of any god nor man; had Erik been a hideous woman rather than a hideous man, it would have made no difference. He had given his heart once, devoted himself to others completely and utterly. And that heart had been torn out. He was not sure there was any more of himself to give.

That night, as he tossed and turned in his narrow bed, the moonlight streaming in through the windows, he did not dream of guns or twisted flesh. He saw only a pair of eyes: hurt, frightened, and shining up at him: one pale blue, one amber-brown.


	3. Oscuro

Coward that he was, Erik double-bolted the door when Nadir left him. After he'd gotten his trembling legs under him, that was. He wasn't good in a fight where he didn't have the upper hand. And there were some matters one could not talk oneself out of. 

_If your hand causes to you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out._

The ghostly warmth of the skin on Nadir's face still radiated through his fingertips, even as Erik clutched the offending limb against his chest and anxiously scanned the street outside for any sign that Nadir was coming back. The road was quiet and still; even so, he slept upright in the armchair in which Nadir had been so sweetly dozing. 

Stupid! Foolish! It was beneath his own intellect to permit himself to be so carried away. Why had he played _Chopin_ of all the damnable composers he might have chosen? Why not Paganini? It would have stoked his ego and absolutely nothing else. Chopin always made him feel so terribly romantic. 

Evidently Chopin made Nadir tired. And when he was tired, a most extraordinary thing happened: he stopped looking like a general. No more the keen eye, the Classical brow, the hard jaw. He was soft and still and so very beautiful. Of course, Erik had always thought he was beautiful, but this was a new beauty. One he did not want to sketch or sculpt. One he wanted to _touch_. To draw near and caress. 

_Better to go through life eyeless and handless than full of sin._

By morning Erik was stiff and sore from sleeping half-sitting up. He worked the crick out of his neck, washed, and dressed for the firm. Warily he left his flat and walked with his ears pricked to the sound of footsteps too close to his own. He approached every doorway and street corner with caution. These few weeks he had looked back upon their dramatic first meeting with a fond nostalgia. How funny that Nadir had nearly disembowled him! How terribly amusing that his knife had come within a hair's breath of carving his face to ribbons - not that he could have made him look worse! _Ha-ha!_ Wasn't it funny now that they were very nearly friends?

Friends! Ha! Every time he returned to his mother's home and attended mass at her insistence the poor old priest could scarce look him in the eye; doubtless remembering all the long hours in the confessional during which Erik recounted the variety of sins of impurity borne of an overactive imagination and appreciation for beauty. Maman was cheerfully oblivious. His interest in the classics was purely intellectual, she was sure. A sign of a brilliant intellect; a compensation from God for his other deficiencies.

Yet God - via the good Father - had him wear the knees of his trousers thin in penance for the longings stirred up in his contemplation of beauty. Was there beauty without desire? Yes, the priest told him firmly. There was. Sacred geometry and all that. What of all the great masterpieces of art of Saints Sebastian and Roch? Nubile young men, their heads tilted back, throats bare, supple limbs white and -

_If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out..._

Nadir was no Sebastian. His skin was burnished, his brow craggy and his eyes - oh, his _eyes_. Shining like beetles wings and sharp as flint. Not doe-like and coy, turned toward a heavenly light. Though when Erik approached him, Nadir's eyes were closed. Safer, that way, he thought. How could he have forgotten? Like a true military man, Nadir was constantly on his guard for threats. 

Only he thought he'd understood! Just a little. Hadn't Erik dragged him to every gallery that would open for a few centesimi. Hadn't their eyes lingered upon figures of great beauty? Hadn't Erik extolled the virtues of the figures they gazed at? And hadn't he laid out his theory of the absence of beauty in the absence of desire? And _hadn't_ Nadir nodded along and agreed with his assessment?

No work was done that day; Erik begged off early, claiming his head was aching. He was sent home with well-wishes and a few home remedies recommended and promptly forgotten. When he left he did not go home; instead he walked. Not to the square - Nadir and his knife might be waiting for him. He walked and walked for miles. To the Vatican.

Erik did not go inside; he was struck with an irrational fear that lightning would set the whole beautiful edifice alight if he did and then what would Christendom do? 

Truly, he did not know what the worse sin was: that he, as a man should desire another man, or that he, as such an ugly creature should desire a creature of such beauty. If the latter was not a sin, it was at least obscene. 

That first day, he recognized the look of stomach-churning horror upon Nadir's face when his mask lay like a white flag of surrender in the mire at their feet. It was one he had been well-acquainted with since he was small. The natural recoiling that was protective; that was what Dr. Barye said. People instinctively shied away from injury, sickness, disease, or...deformity. Nadir had been afraid. And repelled. For all that he'd apologized and fetched his mask out of the dirt. Handing it back without quite looking at him. Swallowing against the bile welling in his throat.

But he had come back to him. Spoken to him. Eaten with him. And spent time. Anyway, when Erik stared at him, drunk on sentiment and Chopin, his eyes had been closed.

His were not sins of the mind. Sins of desire and solitary vice only. _We need only turn out the lights. Naturally, I'll keep the mask on. I'll touch you. You don't have to touch me. I'll bring you such pleasure, you'll forget._

And they did forget. For a few minutes or an hour or two, if he was lucky. But with the coming of dawn or the forgetful pressing of soft lips to his own rotten excuse of a mouth, they would remember and they would go. Erik told himself that was as it should be. He had obscene weakness for beautiful things. It was right that they should flee from him, afterward. There was a penance in that, he thought. And so he did not enter the Holy See seeking a priest. He merely turned on his heel and walked and walked until it was full dark. 

He'd not eaten a bite all day; if he thought a heavy heart would weigh him down and satiate him with misery, he was mistaken. He bought a greasy meal from a food stall and took it home with him to eat, congealing and cold as he took it up the stairs. 

The empty armchair in which he and Nadir had slept stared at him in dull accusation. Erik put his wax paper parcel down and glared at the chair with a little anger seeping into his melancholy, like the grease from the bag had seeped onto his fingers.

"I could have been good to you, you know," he informed the empty chair, loosening his tie, but keeping his jacket on as he went to build up the fire in the tiny grate; it was starting to turn cold, he would need an overcoat come morning. 

"Very good," he continued. "The rest of me doesn't look...like the face. Anyway, I would have turned the lights off. You like it when I make you smile, _Generale_. I could have made you...very happy."

Erik cleared his throat, which was suddenly tight. His eyes burned and he dug the heel of his left hand in behind the eyeholes of his mask before he untied it and tossed the mask onto the chair. The faded green upholstery looked through the eyeholes. A darker green than Nadir's eyes. And yet - 

With a cry of frustration Erik knocked the chair to the ground, mask tumbling away. Blowing a hard breath out, he cursed himself, cursed, Nadir, cursed the chair - _he_ had been happy. Happy to stroll the _strade_ arm in arm with a companion. To have someone listen to him when he spoke, with attention. To have Nadir speak back, sometimes to argue with him, with his funny little accent. Sometimes to ask him to repeat himself. 

No one paid him such attention voluntarily. Employers, masters, employees...his mother, he supposed. The priest in the confessional. Only those who bore an obligation to himself. But Nadir...he'd come back after that first day. He'd seen the painting. Erik thought he'd understood. Evidently not. 

And now he was left alone again. Until the next fellow who would let him put out the light and who would feign to forget what he permitted to caress his beautiful body. Until they remembered. And he was alone with unfulfilled longing and -

Someone coughed. Politely. Just in the doorway.

Erik looked up without covering himself. The disturbed look of muted horror was back upon Nadir's face. Their first meeting all over again. Only now it was dark, the only light coming from the banked fire. With a distant mortification Erik hoped he hadn't seen him kick the chair over like a child throwing a fit over being denied a sweet.

Instinctively Erik looked to his hands - no knife this time, and his hands hung loosely at his side, not clenched into fists. Frozen, he looked up, stomach twisting as he recalled being in this position so recently. Himself on the ground. Nadir looming over him, commanding, hard. Saying only, _No._

Strange how that word was the same, no matter what language one spoke. Erik wondered what the word for 'no' was in Persian. 

But when Nadir spoke, it was not in Persian. It was in Erik's own native tongue - with scarcely a hint of an accent at all.

"Do you speak French?" Nadir asked him.

It was such an odd question, given how they'd parted. So odd, Erik could think of nothing else to say, except for, "Yes, of course."

He nodded, easing a foot over the threshold. As he moved forward, Erik reached out to pick up his mask. Nadir did not stop him, only hovered, as though unsure whether he was permitted inside or not. 

Reasonably sure he was not about to be attacked, Erik gestured him in.

"If I'd known you spoke French," he remarked lightly, righting the armchair as he rose, "I'd have obliged you by doing the same. And been a better conversationalist."

Nadir smiled (and, _oh_ , he was exquisite when he smiled), "I doubt it. You don't know how to have a conversation at all, I don't think. It hardly matters what language I speak, you'd never let me get a word in edgewise."

"Is that so?" Erik asked, cocking his head to the side. His chest was hammering again, as it had done that night Erik was so sure that Nadir would come back with the police or worse. "What do you call this, then? Isn't this a...conversation?"

The smile was gone. Nadir closed his eyes and shook his head. "This is...an apology. Of sorts."

Erik did not make a sound. Deep in his mind he thought he could hear a violin - ah, there was Paganini! High and frantic. That was a better music by far for this than Chopin. He should have known better.

Nadir stood very close to him. He looked up into Erik's eyes and Erik had to force himself to look at him. The grotesque and the sublime in tableaux. If he was calmer, he might paint it. As it was, his fingers spasmed and trembled at his sides. He put his hands in his pockets and hoped he was affecting a casual stance adequately. Knew the mask gave nothing away. And hoped his eyes would follow suit. 

"I..." Nadir sucked in a breath and looked away first. Erik exhaled, a strange relief welling up in him, as though it had been a contest and he'd won. "I lost a wife. A child."

Of course. Well, naturally. He ought to have expected it was something like. And he was so sorry. 

Those were all things Erik might have said. But he did not. He said nothing. He just stared down at Nadir and realized...when all was said and done, he knew almost nothing about him. He'd painted a picture of him on canvas. And one in his mind. The man standing before him was not a general or a life study, plunked down in the autumn sunshine for Erik's titillation or edification. He was only a man. 

"I'm sorry I struck you," Nadir continued. "I did not want...."

 _You_ , Erik expected himself to say. Shored himself up for it. A thoughtful apology, then rejection. Nadir was a good man. If he knew precious little else about him, he knew he was good. 

"I did not want to be wanted," Nadir said instead and Erik's frantic heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second. Skipped. Like a missed note in a piece one knew by heart. Nadir was looking squarely at him, plainly. "I came here to...escape from all that. From feeling anything. For anyone. But then you...I could not stop myself from wanting more of you. Even now."

Fumbling a piece was not always a disaster. Sometimes it led to splendid variations.

"Well?" Nadir asked, that wonderful deep crease between his eyes furrowing further into a gorge. "Erik? Forgive me if I tell you this silence is no more conversation than your talking too much."

Now it was Erik's turn to laugh. Short and quickly stifled. But a laugh nevertheless. 

Even so, he did not speak. For once in his life, he had no idea what to say. Instead he lifted his hand again - slowly, deliberately - his strange eyes looking directly into Nadir's brilliant ones. The backs of his fingers brushed Nadir's warm cheek, rough with stubble against his cold knuckles. Nadir permitted it. Even leaned, very slightly, into the contact.

Behind his mask, Erik smiled. It was not much - most men would count it as hardly anything. But he had a sense that it was more than either of them had hoped for in a long, long while. And in the dark of the flat, with only the light of the small fire in the grate and the stars outside, it was enough to begin with.


End file.
